Running With Argentine
Page 11
"The challenge is," the chief interjected. "That we're going to have to build up some credit and hire some crew before we can travel much further. As long as we’re dealing with places like Tiffany's planet and, presumably Asperia, we can function undermanned for a while. But if we have to spend any significant amount of time with less advanced infrastructures…
"And I hate to admit it, but Barry's made all the difference in the world."
"What about the ship's maintenance that you were so concerned about?" Argentine asked.
"That's what I mean about staying within Asperia's sphere of influence. Assuming we're dealing with fairly open, friendly planets we can do all our maintenance while in dock. As long as we get it all done each time before we head to deep space I'm comfortable – at least for a while."
"So," Argentine summarized. "Does anyone have any problem working the Asperian space lanes long enough to build up enough credits and reputation to hire a crew?"
"No, but how are we going to do that?” the lieutenant asked. "Our best way to earn money is prospecting ore, but we don't have a geologist. And until we prospect more ore, we don't have the money to hire one. Am I missing something?"
"That's another argument for spending some time here before we move on," Argentine said. "I think Mandi was being honest when she outlined the steps necessary to build up a credible reputation. We'll have to start off small, hauling non-priority goods and the like, but if we can prove our reliability there's always a need for dependable freight haulers."
"Did I just hear you say you thought Mandi was being… honest?" the chief asked in mock astonishment.
Argentine couldn't help but notice that the lieutenant was frowning slightly.
"Yeah, well… maybe. I guess we'll find out."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Conspiracies
Leaving Dreamspace
"And then what did you say?" an almost breathless Sami asked.
"I told him if he wanted me he was going to have to do more than just stand up to the enforcers!" Mandi replied.
"What did he do then?"
"I'm not sure. He walked off and I never saw him again."
"Ahhhh, and he was your first love… That must've been terrible."
"It was…" And then after a moment, "But it's the smartest thing he could've done! I'm afraid I would've ruined him!"
They were both giggling so hard that Sami almost rolled off her bed.
They had both decided to have a, Girls’ Night Out. But since there wasn't really any place to go to, they'd had their dinner in Sami's small cabin.
Eventually, Mandi spoke up…
"So what's the deal between you and the captain?" she asked.
"He's no captain," she said, still giggling slightly.
"He's our First… You're the only one he let's call him Captain."
Dawning realization passed over Mandi.
"If he's your First Officer, then where is your Captain?"
"A long ways back that away," Sami giggled and hooked her thumb over her shoulder.
"That sounds like a heckuva story…"
"Oh, it is…" Sami said with wide eyes.
ΔΔΔ
"I can't believe you're letting her have the bloody run of the ship!" Barry declared.
He'd more or less barged in on the meeting between Argentine, the chief, and Lieutenant Stark.
The three men glanced at each other.
"And just what would you suggest?" the chief asked.
"I don't know… Tie her up somewhere? She's a bloody hacker! There's no telling what she's done to our ship's systems… If you think I'm gonna serve on a ship that's all buggered…"
"Listen up, Barry," Argentine interrupted. "As much as we all enjoy listening to your bloody rants, I have to be on the bridge in a few minutes so I'm gonna cut you off short…
"What specifically is it you're afraid she'll do? Do you think she's going to blow up the ship here in deep space?"
After a moment Barry said, "No, she'd have bugger all if she did that… But once we make port and she leaves the ship I’ll wager she’s left behind enough backdoors that the Queen herself could find her way in. That’s bollocks!”
"She's already done that," the chief said.
"Eh, what? You know about it?"
"How do you think she got on the ship in the first place?"
"And how do you think she was hiding her energy usage in the shuttle?" the lieutenant spoke up.
"We really are buggered…"
"Look, Barry. Once we reach Asperia if you want to leave the crew you're free to do so. I'm not going to stop you," said Argentine.
"But we’ll dump the ship's operating system and reboot with the archived version. It's kept in the Captain's safe and even Mandi can't hack a non-electronic system."
Barry was obviously realizing that they were ahead of him on this…
"Of course," the lieutenant added. "If she hacked in once there's probably nothing to stop her from hacking in again… Unless we don't give her any reason to."
"Our best course of action," Argentine said. "Is to drop her off at Asperia and let her go her own way… No hard feelings…
"So I don't need you messing it up by making a big fuss! Get it?
"If you still want to leave us when we reach Asperia you're welcome to. Just do it after she's left the ship – for your sake and ours."
"So all of you… You already had this figured out?"
When no one responded Barry turned, and scratching his head, slowly walked back out of the room.
ΔΔΔ
"Why is she here?" Argentine asked of no one in particular as he walked onto the bridge.
They had dropped back into real space and were spiraling down into the Asperia system's gravity well.
"I thought she could help us out on the communications console… If that's okay," said Sami.
"And just how would she know to operate our communications console?"
"This old thing?" Mandi said. "I think any five-year-old could pick it up pretty quickly."
When Argentine did not respond Sami spoke up, "It turns out that she, uh… Does have some experience."
Argentine stopped inspecting his screen and turned to look directly at Mandi…
"And just how, when she lived her whole life on Tiffany's Planet, would she get that experience?"
"It's a really boring story, Captain. It would take a long time to explain and right now you need my help. Can we just leave it at that?"
Argentine knew that since their approach was canted off from the elliptic of the system's plane, they wouldn't be traveling near any of the outer planets.
"Our approach is going to give us plenty of time, Mandi. So I'm all ears.”
For the first time any of them had seen, Mandi had a slightly frustrated look on her face…
"Well, I was born on Tiffany's planet. I just didn't grow up there…"
In the moments right before Mandi began telling her story Sami could be heard to murmur, "She's the only one he let's call him Captain."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Revelations
Spiraling Down
Asperia’s Gravity Well
"If you didn't grow up on Tiffany's planet, where did you grow up?" Argentine prodded Mandi to continue.
They were all on the bridge waiting for Mandi to finish her story…
"My mother died when I was very young," she began.
The chief rolled his eyes.
Mandi saw it and frowned at him…
"At any rate, my father raised me and of course I went where he went. Back then, Tiffany's planet was a lot different than it is today. All of the groundside colonies were established, but physical labor was the primary type of work available. He… wasn't very good at that."
"Did he have any training?" Sami asked.
"Of course. He was a systems analyst and programmer."
"Well, I'll believe that," Barry remarked.
Argentine shot him a
stern glance.
"Anyway, an information technology position opened up on one of the supply ships and he took it. Everything worked out well, for a while. So we found ourselves tramping around the space lanes.”
“You didn’t learn everything you know by looking over daddy’s shoulder,” the chief flatly stated.
"No. Unfortunately, daddy had some weaknesses…"
Furtively glancing at Argentine, and knowing they wouldn't let her off the hook without details, she added…
"Gambling. Among others…"
Summoning some inner strength she continued…
"Eventually they owned him. They started him off small; the favors they asked him to do weren’t illegal, not really. But eventually he was into it deep enough that, in the eyes of the authorities, he was as big a criminal as they were."
"Who are they, and what were they having him do?" Barry asked, interested in spite of himself.
"They're called Los Lobos del Noche, and they had him providing shipping manifests, loading schedules, flight plans… Whatever was needed to help them pirate and smuggle."
"They were a cartel and your father is a crook," the chief summed up.
Shaking her head Mandi said, "No, they are a cartel, and… I never thought of daddy that way. He was always looking for a way to get us out, but… He died in a government raid when I was nine years old."
"So what happened to you?" Argentine asked in a voice that was softer than he'd intended.
"I was raised by the cartel. By that point my computer skills were… growing. They took care of me and I did what was necessary to survive.
"Somewhere along the line they moved me back to Asperia and permanently grounded me. I guess I was too valuable to be going out on raids anymore."
"Asperia? You mean you've lived here? Do the authorities know you here?" asked the chief.
"They know of the cartel; it’s based on Asperia."
"Just how big is this cartel?" the lieutenant asked.
Running her tongue along the inside of her cheek, an obvious nervous habit, Mandi said, "They're more spread out than large, but they have people on a dozen planets and influence on at least a dozen more. They're a tight-knit group but their reputation is kind of… huge."
"So what were you doing back on Tiffany's Planet?" Argentine asked. "And for that matter, you obviously lied about that too… You're not running from their government, are you?"
"I did not lie!" she said, indignant. "I am so running from the Tiffany's Planet enforcers. It's just a coincidence that I'm also running from the cartel…"
"What?" Barry and several others cried out.
"There was an incident…"
"When you were on Asperia?" Argentine prodded.
After Mandi nodded he said, "How long ago was this?"
"It was my fifteenth birthday," she said with some small pride in her voice.
“Old news, then,” Argentine murmured with obvious relief.
"What happened?" the lieutenant demanded.
After a hard pause she said, "I'm not a killer! You have to understand… I've never killed anyone before or since it happened, but…"
Everyone on the bridge was enthralled…
"The group of thugs that had enslaved my father was visiting Asperia. By then, they had risen in power to run the entire cartel's business on Tiffany's. Their trip to the cartel's home was sort of a rite of passage for them; it was a big deal."
"So you killed them," Argentine said softly.
Mandi simply nodded.
"Does anyone know you were behind it?" Lieutenant Stark, being ever practical, asked.
Nodding more vigorously Mandi said, "Oh yes, I remotely hacked into their ship systems and drained all the oxygen out of the atmosphere when they were on final approach. When the port authorities opened the hatch to their ship they found thirty-four dead bodies."
The lieutenant broke the stunned silence by asking, "Okay, but that still doesn't tell us how they knew it was you…"
"They know because I used the ship's interior cameras to film them. I recorded every gasp, every cough… every twitch of their dying corpses. I ended the short recording with my father's name and R.I.P. superimposed across the screen and then broadcast it to every public access point across the orbital station."
Nobody knew what to say.
With quiet contemplation Mandi added, "In retrospect I probably should've said, 'Payback is a Bitch,' and left it at that.
ΔΔΔ
"So, you are wanted by both the cartel and the Asperian authorities," the chief clarified. "Have you got anyone else mad at you that we ought to know about?"
"Maybe a few ex-boyfriends, but besides that no one that I know of."
"Not that she knows of," the lieutenant said almost admiringly.
"Isn't that enough?" the chief was agitated. "We're trying to make a new start… Gain some credibility with the Asperian authorities… And we're bringing this kind of trouble with us?
"We might as well paint a skull and crossbones on our hull!"
"Hey! It's not like you guys are as pure as the driven snow! He," she said pointing at Barry. "Is on the run just as much as I am. And for that matter, we never really have discussed what the rest of you are running from…
"Would you care to talk about that?" she finished.
"This conversation isn’t about us, it's about you," was the only thing Argentine could really think of to retort with.
"Relax; you have nothing to worry about. They have the wrong image of me in their database. Their facial recognition software won't work. They’ll never know I'm back."
"How did you change your image…? No, wait. Never mind," Argentine shook his head.
"We could turn her over to the authorities," mused the lieutenant. "They might consider it a sign of good faith in our part…"
Before anyone could say anything Sami almost shouted, "We are not going to turn her in! So just figure something else out!"
"Sami, we may not…" the chief started to say.
"Oh, look!" Mandi said aloud. "We're being hailed…"
ΔΔΔ
The Asperian customs agent was friendly enough.
His ship had intersected the Pelican's system descent spiral and his two-man team had boarded for a standard inspection.
"What brings you into Asperian space, Captain…? Argentine, is it?" he said while looking at his data pad. "Of the good ship… Pelican? Funny name for a ship…" he murmured.
"Yes, that's right. If we can't find work we’ll just be passing through, but we’re hoping someone will need our services."
"Hmm, that may not be as easy as you think. This is your first time here, right?"
"That's right. We know we may have to start off small and build a reputation, but we’re willing to make a go of it if someone will give us a chance."
"Well, that's the right attitude. Where are you from?"
"Eh… we…"
"We're originally from the Ornitholian Empire," Barry jumped in. "From down spiral."
"Can't say that I've ever heard of it," the agent responded. "But everyone's got to be from somewhere, right?"
"Your ship's manifest says you're carrying a crew of seven. Is that still accurate?"
"Ah, yes. It is," Argentine managed to answer.
"Kind of undermanned, aren't you"?
"Yeah, we are. We are hoping to hire some crew."
Just then the customs officer's two agents returned to the bridge.
"All clear. We're good here," they announced.
Argentine hadn't even realized he’d been holding his breath.
The eighth (and temporary) member of their crew, Mandi, had earlier disappeared from the bridge – right after the customs officer had made clear his intention to board their ship.
“How many generations has she been yours?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The ship. How many generations has she been in your family? She’s an old ship, but I suspect she’s been a good
one.”